(now is not the time for a joke about what that thing should be fyi)
I respect your independence. It’s sexy as fuck. You should independently tell your man when someone’s fucking with you so he can handle the problem. Respectfully
(you get one free pass)
I’m going to bed, boogeyman. Independently
Damn right you are
NINETEEN
At a certain point,the brain could only take so much.
Dahlia firmly believed that she’d reached her limit forty-eight hours ago. She’d officially passed it when Felix handed her the gun, and then she’d left it in the rearview mirror when she sank her fangs into his neck.
To have it confirmed under no uncertain terms that she wasn’t allowed to leave sent her so far beyond what she could handle that she simply retreated inside herself like a turtle into its shell. There was no dealing with it. There was no negotiation or problem-solving. There was only survival, and that meant pretending her problems didn’t exist.
After Felix walked her back to his room —their room? —she could do nothing except crash for a few hours of blissful, dreamless sleep. There was no Alastair Bowan or blood brides or sharp teeth in her dreams. Just a blessed blackness that wiped all that away.
She woke up groggy and disoriented sometime later to the feeling of Felix’s fingers in her hair. The strokes were gentle, almost like he wasn’t actually trying to wake her.
Between coming out of a deep sleep and true wakefulness there was a perfect stillness where she didn’t care about where she was or why he was touching her — only that he didn’t stop.
Dahlia let out a long, pleased sigh and tilted her head into his hand. The rhythm briefly faltered before it picked up again, this time with a little more pressure.
Felix’s low, amused voice filled the quiet. “If you sleep much longer, you won’t be able to catch Cecilia before she goes to bed.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Cecilia? What—” She sat up, dislodging his hand, and looked around like her best friend might pop out of the shopping bags she’d tossed on the floor or from behind a thick curtain. “Where is she?”
“Back at her apartment, I imagine.” He withdrew her phone from his pocket and placed it in her lap. “Give her a call, pet. She’s probably worried about you. And it’ll make you feel better.”
It felt like a calculated move to reinforce his assertion that she wasn’t actually a prisoner, but she didn’t care. Dahlia snatched the phone out of her lap.
Chuckling, Felix stood up from the bed, but he didn’t leave. Instead, he bent low to press a kiss to her forehead. “You don’t have to hide anything from her,” he whispered, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the corner of her jaw. “But if she offers to stage a rescue mission, I’d try to put her off. Or don’t. There are a lot of single Amauris roaming around who’d love to meet her, I’m sure.”
She could tell he was only half-joking. No doubt Felix would find it absolutely hilarious — and suit his nefarious purposes — to hook her best friend up with one of his cousins. Then she’dreallynever be able to leave, because there wasn’t a chance she’d abandon Cecilia to fend for herself among the Amauris.
Giving him a wide-eyed look of indignation, she said, “No, no, no. None of you go anywhere near Cece. She couldn’t handle your bullshit. She’s way too nice.”
Felix tapped the end of her nose. “Then no rescue operations, hm?”
Stepping away from the bed, he cast a look at the bags scattered hither and yon across the floor. A dark brow arched. “Are you not gonna use your closet?”
“If I can wrap my head around the idea of having a closet in your house, I’ll consider it.”
He tilted his head back to give the elaborately molded ceiling a long-suffering look. “Fine. I’ll just buy you more until youhaveto put stuff in the closet or risk breaking an ankle on a ten thousand dollar purse.”
His ability to dodge the things she threw at him was deeply aggravating. The silver dish she could understand. The pillow he could’ve given her, for her pride’s sake. But he didn’t.
Felix stepped to the side in one fluid motion, dodging the silk tasseled monstrosity she’d chucked his way, and continued laughing as he left the bedroom. She waited until she couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore before she frantically pulled up Cecilia’s contact page, cursing his name all the while.
“Have you considered jumping out a window?”
Dahlia pawed through the bags on the floor. Marietta had pulled out all the fancy stuff, but there were heaps more she hadn’t touched. White tissue paper piled up around her like snowdrifts as she sorted through silky pajamas, high end loungewear, the fancy kind of jeans that could be passed downto her children, and several fashionable coats strong enough to withstand a New Zone winter.
Before escaping reality via a blackout nap, she’d changed into a soft pair of pants and loose shirt, which allowed her to sit comfortably on the floor as she explained to her best friend all the ways her life had gone to shit.
“I haven’t even looked outside,” she admitted, pinching the phone between her ear and shoulder as she briskly folded a cashmere sweater. It must’ve cost him an egregious sum of money, so she made a mental note to take it with her when she left.
